by Edward Lee
The front door of the trailer banged open and the two sizeable rednecks, quite literally, threw Augie and Clark out onto the rickety porch. They both landed flat on their backs.
“And stay out!” one yelled.
The second, a bald man with Elvis sideburns, glared and pointed a finger. “Don’t make us tell ya again less’n ya wanna go back to the city with yer pretty-boy faces uglied up but good!”
The door slammed shut. Augie and Clark pulled themselves to their feet, dazed but seemingly feeling little pain. Augie laughed, “Hell, Clark. I consider it an honor to get kicked out of a trailer-park poker game by the Honky Tonk Man!”
Clark was not as festive in his opinion. “What did you expect? You called everybody in the room, and I quote, ‘a bunch of inbred thieving Gomer Pyle rednecks!’”
Augie chuckled. “Did I really say that?”
“Yes, you did!”
“Well, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke…and they were cheating us. That game was about as straight as Liberace.”
They shuffled down the main drag, disheveled locals frowning at them.
“It looks to me like we’ve worn out our welcome,” Clark said. “Let’s just go back to the motel.”
“Yeah, I’ve had my fill of fuckin’ Backtown for one night.”
They made their way back to the parking lot, which was even fuller than before. It took Augie several tries but eventually he unlocked the SUV, then he and Clark got in.
“Fuck, I’m drunk,” Augie said. He raised a finger. “But that’s a good thing.”
“You want me to drive?” Clark asked, just as tipsy. “The last thing we need is to get pulled over down here.”
Augie started the vehicle. “We ain’t getting pulled over, and even if we did, I think my friend Ben Franklin and his nine brothers would convince the cop not to arrest us.” At that moment, Augie backed the SUV into the back fender of a parked pickup.
“Good job, Augie!”
“Relax. Nobody saw.” Augie drove out of the parking lot. “Besides, that truck’s a piece of shit; the owner’ll never know the difference.”
After some deliberating, Augie turned right, back onto Tick Neck Road, hoping he’d turned the right way. Soon, the SUV was cruising down the quiet road, headlamps shooting lances of intense white light in front of them. There were no street lights out here. This was bona fide country back here with nothing else to illuminate it but the star light, which was about as dim as the yokels they’d left behind.
“Yeah, to hell with Backtown,” Clark said. “Never seen so many goobers in my life.”
“Fuck ’em. I’ve always hated rednecks and now I hate ’em even more. I hope they blow their faces off trying to mount a gun rack. Shit! Speaking of mounting, we never did find the whorehouse!”
“Big deal. I’m probably too drunk to get it up anyway.”
“Nonsense!” Augie insisted. “We’re still strapping young lads. I don’t know about you but one-hundred-percent shitfaced or stone-cold sober, I can bang beaver all night and wake up ready to lay down some more pipe. “
“Well, you better forget it ’cos we’re not going back there. But at least we got to see a real live—what did he call it? Hock Party?”
“Yeah, man!” Augie lit up. “That was a trip! How about Carly Ann? Talk about a shitty day in Hicksville! She swallows what must’ve been a gallon of spit only to lose the contest by one loogie, then she gets her ass beat by the blond who blew her boyfriend, and to top it all off, Dora sticks her finger down her throat and throws up her entire bellyful right into the poor girl’s face! I thought about giving her a hundred bucks, but…fuck it, you know? Win or go home. They’ll never believe it at the yacht club.”
“Sure they will,” Clark said. “I recorded it on my iPhone.”
“Good man!” Augie high-fived him. “You need to send me that bitch right this second.”
Clark blinked several times as if to reset the blurry sight of his phone. He tapped the screen several times and after a moment, Augie’s phone vibrated in his pocket in succession.
“I had to break it up into a few videos,” Clark explained. “Shit. My phone’s about dead.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll use my phone if we stumble on another Hock Party.”
“We going back to the motel?”
“Yeah, but I still need another piece of ass, and I mean now. Let’s get Brice and go back to Sallee’s. I ain’t leaving this shit pit town till I knock the bottom out of some more white trash pussy.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
But in a moment, Augie and Clark were squinting ahead through the windshield.
Clark put on his glasses. “Is that someone walking?”
“Sure is.”
“It’s not Brice, is it?”
Augie grinned. “Not unless Brice grew a brick shit-house ass and killer tits since we last saw him.”
Clark squinted ahead. “You’re right! It’s a chick!”
Augie slowed the vehicle down just as the pedestrian looked over her shoulder.
“Oh, shit, it’s that retarded girl,” Clark said.
Augie winked. “Babba’s her name, right? Let’s have some fun,” and then he pulled up alongside the girl and stopped. The power window lowered. “Hey, Babba. Need a ride?”
Babba looked back crosseyed, drooling, and vigorously nodded her head yes.
Clark reached back and opened the back door. “Hop in.”
Babba’s large haltered breasts swayed as she climbed in, paused a moment, then closed the door. “Gyuh, gyuh, gyuhank you!”
Augie slipped Clark a sly grin. “Noooooo problem, Babba. “
««—»»
Brice could not conceive of what he was doing, yet he did it anyway. Any inner-monitor he might have possessed to remind him about right and wrong had evidently been turned off. What he was doing was this:
He gripped the dead girl’s right wrist while Stoody gripped the left, and he pulled.
The effort disgorged the corpse from its grave. Most of the dirt fell off, but what didn’t, Stoody now busily swiped away with his hand. In the moonlight, her nude body was the color of a peeled banana. Stoody flicked more dirt out of her eyes, to find them glassy and wide open, while her mouth remained closed, the blue lips pressed together. Nipples larger than silver dollars were bluish as well, a bruise-like hue, the papillae strangely erect and large as pinkie ends. Death and burial had left the faintest traceries of vein-networks beneath her skin and even on her face.
Brice’s penlight didn’t linger on the physique of the corpse but instead darted to the top of the woman’s skull. He gagged, gulped hard, and could only say, “You weren’t bullshitting…”
Stoody made a self-confident laugh. “Told ya.” His brows raised, almost as if he were admiring the woman’s dead body. “Couldn’t see real good when they was plantin’ her—didn’t realize she was such a looker,” and then he hefted up her shoulders, tipping her head up. “Lookie, look here with yer light.” He was making it easier for Brice to see.
Brice focused the penlight down…
Stoody pulled the tresses of lank blond hair back farther, to elucidate the three-inch circular hole cut into the top of her cranium. Stoody’s finger pointed, and Brice nauseously recognized the circle of white-pink brains.
“They’se use a hole-saw ta cut the head open,” Stoody explained, and now he actually touched the brains with the tip of his finger. “You see that there, don’t’cha?”
What he referred to was what appeared to be a slit cut into the brain.
“For shit’s sake,” Brice whispered.
“See, after they cut the circle’a bone out’a the skull, they stick a knife in there so’s ta make a slit to stick their peckers in.”
I can’t believe what I’m seeing, Brice thought. He seemed to hear a distant rushing sound and felt as though he were looking down at the details of this atrocity from a monumental height.
And Stoody’s words seemed to
echo. “It’s pure and simple, really. After they’se open the head’n cut the slit…they fuck the girl’s brain.”
The echo reverberated in Brice’s consciousness:
—they fuck the girl’s brain—
…fuck the girl’s brain—
…fuck the girl’s brain…
“’Tis only fittin’ and proper,” Stoody added.
“What?” Brice said.
“The only folks who get headers is folks that deserve it. Rapists, druggers, fellas who mess with kids. Larkins Brothers is doin’ the world a favor when they get rid’a such trash. And I don’t see no reason why they shouldn’t have a little fun fer their effort.”
Brice could’ve been a mannequin staring down. “Fucking someone’s brain is fun?”
“Well, shore,” Stoody replied matter-of-factly. “A header’s the best nut a fella could ever have. Don’t rightly know why, just ‘tis. You pump some lowlife’s noggin’ and you’ll feel like you got naught but sawdust in yer balls afterwards. It drains a man plumb dry. There’s just somethin’ ’bout a brain that makes it good ta fuck.”
Now Brice could only stare at Stoody, appalled. “So…you’ve done it yourself? You’ve done…a header?”
Stoody sat back against a tree, wiping his hands off. He lit a cigarette. “Shore’s hail did, friend. One time couple years ago, this homeless dude come through town. Couple folks said they seen him peekin’ in the element’ry school winders and beatin’ off, or doin’ the same while’s watchin’ the kids on the playground, but then he run away. Couple days after he grabbed li’l Jenny Karner when she were walkin’ home from school. Jenny weren’t but, like, ten at the time. Tried ta diddle her in the woods but thank God she got away. Well, word got ‘round, and it was Helton Tuckton who caught the bastard walkin’ down the old train tracks. Helton snatched him’n took him back ta his shack and, well, he throwed a header. Lot of us got invited. Must’a been two dozen fellas humped that head. But ya know what?”
“What?” Brice droned.
Stoody grinned for effect. “Never again did that homeless dude mess with no kids,” and then he laughed.
Brice was almost too disoriented to think. He looked down at the shapely corpse again, then turned away, staring into the woods.
“And I’ll tell ya somethin’, too,” Stoody went on as if reciting a fable. “’Twas the best feelin’ I ever had in my whole blammed life. Never had me no nut like that before or after.”
“This is crazy,” Brice muttered, more to himself. “This is madness…”
“Oh, I can understand why a city fella such as yerself might be out’a sorts about such goin’s-on. City ways is different from backwoods ways since yawl believe in reherbilertation. We don’t bother with police or courts or trials’n whatnot. When someone commit a crime that’s real bad? The only proper punishment is a header.” Stoody laughed again, this time a little loud. “Bet if your big city judges sentenced drug dealers and rapist scum to a header instead of prison, there wouldn’t be no crime at all in the city.”
Brice, trying to quell the nauseous feeling in his gut, turned very abruptly. He’d heard a rustling sound, and after that he was staring…
««—»»
Mewling, stifled shrieks, and muffled sobs circled round the inside of the SUV. Augie was back up front in the driver’s seat, catching his breath and rebuckling his Gucci belt. When he took a quick look in back he saw Babba’s face reddened in terror, hair in disarray, eyes teary and bugging. It was Clark’s hand that sealed her mouth closed. Her top was pulled up over her weighty breasts, her cutoff short dangled off one ankle. And here was the fact of the matter: Babba was being frenetically and primitively raped by Clark in the back seat. Augie had had his turn first, and that had taken most of the zing out of her. Any remaining zing was fast ebbing away beneath Clark’s rapid pelvic thrusts, which sounded like someone slapping a raw steak.
“Come on, man,” Augie complained. “We’ll be in the next fiscal quarter by the time you’re done…”
More pounding, then, and Babba went lax, giving up all resistance, yet her eyes remained locked open, her lower lip trembled; Clark could feel the odd resonant shuddering of her body under his. He leaned up, arching his back, bucking harder to achieve orgasm. His gold dolphin chain jiggled and glimmered in the moonlight. Finally his thrusts stopped, and he sat up in the seat, disgruntled. He pulled his shirt back on and refastened his pants.
Then he peered at Babba.
“Shit…”
Augie grinned. “What’s wrong, stud? Couldn’t get John Thomas to give up the goods?”
Clark patted Babba’s cheek, and then concern narrowed his eyes. “I think she’s in shock, man. This was a stupid move.”
“Forget it,” Augie said. “Put some money in her pocket and push her out. These hayseeds get raped all the time, they’re used to it. To them it’s not even rape, it’s just part of life for them. Hell, their father’s break them in when they’re little kids.”
“How the fuck do you know!” Clark yelled. He was now feeling Babba’s pulse with some severity, then feeling her forehead.
“She’s all right,” Augie dismissed.
“I’m serious! She’s going into shock, and her body temp’s going down!”
“Well then do some doctor shit, make her better, and get her out of the fucking car! We gotta split before someone comes by!”
Clark’s silence now was ominous. “Holy… Turn on the dome light,” he said in a dreadful whisper.
Augie frowned and did so.
“Oh my God…”
“What’s wrong now?” Augie griped, itching to get a move on.
In the now well-lit backseat, Babba’s face was paling, clammy, and still. Clark raised his hands in horror to find them covered in blood.
More blood was all over the back seat.
“Holy fuck, Augie! She must’ve been a virgin!”
“Bullshit!” was Augie’s response. “She’s just on the rag!”
Clark’s face was intense. “Not with this much blood! We ruptured her hymen, man! She’s bleeding like a tap!”
Augie didn’t believe it until he looked into the back. Then he unbuckled his pants, looked down, and his eyes bulged. “Fuck! I got a shitload of blood all over my crotch!”
“Me too!”
“Just get her out of the car before she bleeds all over everything!” Augie pulled his t-shirt back on, then jumped out of the SUV. Outside, he opened the back door, grabbed the girl’s limp wrists, and pulled—
thunk!
She landed flat on her back, her breasts shuddering, nude save for the cutoff shorts still ringed about one ankle. Augie looked at her face but could only do so for a moment. Her mouth stretched open, and her eyes looked lidless. Was she still breathing? Augie doubted it but didn’t have the courage to find out. “Wipe up as much as you can with her top! We gotta beat feet!
The small halter was sodden in moments; Augie wiped up more blood with some rags he found in back. Then the rags, the halter top, and two bloody flipflops were tossed into the woods. Augie got back behind the wheel and started the engine.
“Shit, man! What are we doing?” Clark exclaimed. “We can’t just leave her here!”
“The hell we can’t.”
“She could bleed to death!”
“Open your eyes, doctor. She’s deader than dogshit already.”
Clark craned his head out the window. “Looks like you’re right, but I better check her vitals just to make sure,” and he started to open the door.
Augie floored the SUV, and he jerked out of the clearing, hit the road, and sped away, squealing rubber.
“Are you fuckin’ crazy!” Clark yelled. “We don’t know that she’s dead, and if she’s not she’ll give our descriptions to the cops!”
Augie started to calm down, both hands on the wheel, looking out at the road ahead. “You’re not thinking, man. She was bleeding like a stuck pig, and even if she’s not dead, she can’t tell anyo
ne shit.”
“Why not!”
“What do you mean why not? She can’t talk and she’s retarded as fuck. I’m starting to wonder if she’s the only one.”
The reminder simmered Clark down. “Mental retardates can’t testify in court.”
“That’s right. If it’s our word against hers, we’ll win, ’cos she doesn’t have any words. Just that fucked up gibberish.”
Augie, now, actually smiled. He leaned over briefly to the passenger foot-well, plucked something up with index and forefinger. “Annnnnnnd? No DNA, either.” What dangled from his fingers was a used condom. “Smart boys always use rubbers.”
Clark’s eyes shot open. He gulped.
“Where’s yours?” Augie snapped. “You didn’t throw it out of the truck when we dumped her, did you? Fuck! If you did, we gotta go back and get it, you fuckin’ numbskull!”
Clark remained perfectly still, mouth agape, face frozen. “I don’t remember… Where did I…” Then he shoved his hand down his pants. “How do you like that? It’s still on my dick!”
They both laughed and laughed and laughed, as the SUV drove away as if nothing had ever happened.
««—»»
“Come on, man!” Brice yelled. “Are you out of your mind? You’re feeling up a dead girl!” and this was quite true. Brice’s consciousness only seemed to register intermittently, and his gaze seemed warped as he continued to look down.
Stoody was indeed fondling the dead blond woman’s breasts. He grinned up in the moonlight. “I don’t hear her complainin’.” He cupped his hand to his ear. “Do you? Still warm, too, and she ain’t started ta stink yet. Don’t see no worms, no maggots, no nuthin’.” Then he began to pull the corpus out of its grave.
“What are you doing?”
Stoody chuckled, as always, lackadaisically. “What’choo think? College boy like you? Dang!”
Once completely unearthed, the dead body seemed nearly luminous from the reaction of cool moonlight on the bloodless white skin.
“And, see?” Stoody remarked further, pointing into the hole. “That there’s her beau after the skin-job.”
